Smoking articles are known which have a fuel element is attached to one end thereof to provide heat generation for operation of the smoking article. The fuel element comprises a carbonaceous fuel rod wrapped in a glass fiber web and overwrapped with a paper wrapper or plug wrap. Such smoking articles are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,714,082; 4,756,318; and 5,065,776 assigned to the assignee of the present invention, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference.
In one method of making the fuel element of such smoking articles, a web of reconstituted tobacco paper is disposed between two identical webs of a glass fiber material to form a composite web which is then wrapped about a continuously extruded carbonaceous fuel rod and overwrapped with a paper wrapper which may also be tobacco paper, as described in European Patent Application No. 562,474, published Sep. 29, 1993. In order to economically produce such smoking articles, it is necessary to form the various components of the smoking article in a continuous process at high production rates.
Conventional cigarette making machinery typically operates at the high production rates contemplated by the present invention. One conventional apparatus for making cigarette filters, known as a KDF filter maker, may be employed in the manufacture of fuel elements for the smoking articles described in the aforesaid patents. However, the apparatus upstream of the KDF filter for supplying the components of the fuel element is substantially different from that used to make conventional cigarette filters. The present invention is directed to that apparatus and, in particular, to the various components of the apparatus for forming the aforesaid composite web from rolls of glass fiber material and tobacco paper and supplying the composite web to the KDF filter maker for making the fuel element of the smoking article.